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Sunday, January 31, 2016

Nice work if you can get it. At a campaign rally in Waterloo on September 15, a local union paid 23 members $100 each to stand behind Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau as he made an announcement about investing $750 million in worker training programs.

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Give a listen to this interview with Gayle McFadden, York University's Vice President of Operations for the York Federation of Students on CBC Radio's As It Happens:

The interview comes in the wake of the news that philanthropist and businessman Paul Bronfman has withdrawn financial support for York University over its refusal to remove a controversial mural in its student centre which many Jews find deeply offensive. The mural portrays a Palestinian clutching large rocks, with the implication they are to be used against Israelis. Many Israelis have been murdered by Palestinian rock-throwers. Also in the mural is a map of Palestine in which Israel has been eradicated, reflecting the chant so often repeated by anti-Israel activists at York, "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." From the river to the sea refers to the entire territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, which includes both Israel and the Palestinian Territories and by "free" they mean free of Jews.

In defending her position not to remove the mural, McFadden continually deflects to the talking point that criticism of Israel is not of itself antisemitic. It's a strawman argument, since Bronfman himself concedes that point. However obsessive efforts to delegitimize Israel's right to exist, and to uniquely try to deny the Jewish people a right to self-determination, which is a facet of the "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions" campaign the mural represents, are indeed antisemitic

In the interview with host Carol Off, McFadden admits that a number of Jewish students at York have expressed to her that they were upset about the mural in York's Student Centre that they consider antisemtic and an incitement to violence against Israelis.

Astoundingly, while agreeing that the Student Centre is a place that is supposed to be welcoming to all students, in response to a question in the last minute of the interview, McFadden says that she believes the Centre is welcoming to all students with the mural on the wall.

Considering that McFadden and York's President acknowledged that many students have explicitly told her they find the mural hateful and discriminatory, it is difficult to find an alternate way of explaining McFadden's claim other than that she must be either a bald-faced liar or has some sort of mental defect.

Friday, January 29, 2016

Student leaders at the University of Oregon considered removing a famous Martin Luther King Jr. quote from a wall on its student center on the grounds that it was just not inclusive enough — because it talked only about racial discrimination and not discrimination based on stuff like gender identity. The quote has been displayed at the Erb Memorial Union (which is currently being renovated) since 1985. It’s probably something that you’ve heard before — “I have a dream that my four little children that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream . . .” — without even thinking that it might be problematic. But that’s because you’re just not as smart or culturally aware as these kids...

Controversial atheist Richard Dawkins has been dumped as the keynote speaker at an upcoming New York City sceptics conference after he praised a video equating feminism with radical Islamism.

"We have taken this action in response to Dr Dawkins' approving retweet of a highly offensive video," said a statement by the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (NECSS). "We believe strongly in freedom of speech and freedom to express unpopular, and even offensive, views. However, unnecessarily divisive, counterproductive, and even hateful speech runs contrary to our mission and the environment we wish to foster at NECSS."

Dawkins retweeted comments from a fan praising a video entitled Feminists Love Islamists. It features an unattractive cartoon feminist with a militant Islamist singing a song together comparing their despotic similarities. "We share essentially the same ideology," the two croon.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Today, January 27, 2016, International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei published on his official website a three-minute video clip titled "Are The Dark Ages Over?" In it, he expresses doubt about whether the Holocaust actually happened, rages about Europe's ban on public questioning of the validity of the Holocaust, and hints at a conspiracy on the part of Western Europe and the U.S. – which champion freedom of speech yet at the same time prevent open discussion of whether the Holocaust happened, and rages about Europe's ban on denying the Holocaust....

Macleans Magazine, which once used to be an actual news magazine that ran insightful, in-depth articles, is now just a collection of printed brain farts.

Today, they're shocked that Stephen Harper's government would have the audacity to prioritize Syrian refugees who came from the most vulnerable and persecuted populations in Syria's civil war. As it happens, Harper explicitly publicized that policy...

....Harper, responding to a Globe and Mail story, said that when it comes to admitting refugees, his government ensures the selection of the most vulnerable people while keeping the country safe and secure.

...prior to the October election.

...Before last winter, the previous government had only committed to take in 1,300 Syrian refugees from the millions fleeing the civil war there and spilling into surrounding countries.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper had been under intense pressure — including from inside his own cabinet — to increase that total, but only agreed to accept a further 10,000 provided that religious and ethnic minorities were prioritized.

The policy, unveiled last January, was contentious. The vast majority of the Syrian refugee population is Muslim. The decision to hone in on “religious minorities” prompted allegations the government was biased against Muslims and was also violating United Nations principles governing refugee resettlement.

The refugees the Canadian government accepts for resettlement are chosen by the UN. They do not use ethnicity or religion as a basis for determining whether someone requires resettlement to a third country.

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

The footage, filmed by local civilians in Gaza and uploaded to YouTube, shows cattle tied to poles, trees and vehicles before being stabbed in the neck and eyes. One animal was kneecapped by shots from an assault rifle. Animals Australia said the footage, filmed during a ritual called the "festival of sacrifice", was some of the worst seen in a series of animal welfare outrages involving Australian cattle. WARNING: CONTAINS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC IMAGES

WASHINGTON -- The Canadian government has fired off a pre-emptive strike before American lawmakers hold a hearing in which the northern neighbour's Syria refugee policy will be on the hot seat.

It sent a note to members of a powerful U.S. Senate committee that has scheduled a meeting next week titled, "Canada's Fast-Track Refugee Plan: Unanswered Questions and Implications for U.S. National Security."

The U.S. Senate homeland-security hearing is, for the Trudeau government, an unwanted flip-side to the praise it received from progressives and foreign media outlets last month when the prime minister personally greeted refugees at the airport.

This may not help Cruz when it comes around to the New York primary, but that's down the road, while Iowa is very soon:

Senator Ted Cruz is trying to antagonize Iowans against Donald J. Trump, with whom he is locked in an increasingly contentious fight, in this new ad, “New York Values.”

Over ominous orchestral music, the ad opens with Mr. Trump speaking on “Meet the Press” in 1999. In a New Yawk accent that in hindsight seems over-the-top even for him, he tells Tim Russert, “I lived in New York City and Manhattan all my life, so my views are little different than if I lived in Iowa.”

A narrator interrupts. “They are different. Like on abortion,” she says, mirroring a headline that overtakes the screen. Asked by Mr. Russert if he would ban a late-term procedure called partial-birth abortion by opponents of abortion rights, Mr. Trump says, “I am pro-choice in every respect.

The narrator interrupts again: “And what does Mr. Trump think about Iowa?” At which point Mr. Trump, arms outstretched on the stump, mouth agape, is shown asking rhetorically, “How stupid are the people of Iowa?”

Welcome to Canada under Prince Bonehead. It's only going to get worse over the next 4 years:

Some government-sponsored Syrian refugees staying at a budget hotel in Toronto say they feel like they're "trapped in a prison" without hope due to a lack of communication, supplies and assistance.

Virginia Johnson, one of two volunteers working at the hotel, joined CBC Radio's Metro Morning on Monday to speak to host Matt Galloway.

Johnson said the refugees have been at the hotel for weeks and have no idea when they will be able to leave. Some of the 85 government-sponsored refugees say they're not getting much help, and would rather go back to their refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon.

"The settlement agencies are overwhelmed," said Johnson. "There's a huge opportunity for individuals to step up and help."

​​Zaneb Adri Abu-Rukti, a Syrian mother, spoke through a translator at the Toronto hotel, and said she did not expect to be there for so long.

"We were told that when we arrived to the hotel that we would only be staying for three to four days maximum. However, things have been changed and we've been here for 10 to 11 days, and we've been told it could be even longer. The problem is that we have kids and we would rather be outside in a settled house than sitting at a hotel," Abu-Rukti said.

One often-cited key to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is economic development. To that end, there seems to be broad agreement about the importance of extending development aid to help the Palestinians build the physical and social infrastructure that will enable the emergence of a sustainable, prosperous society. But few have seriously questioned how much money is sent and how it is used.

Such assistance will only promote peace if it is spent to foster tolerance and coexistence. If it is used to strengthen intransigence it does more harm than good—and the more aid that comes in, the worse the outcome. This is exactly what has been transpiring over the past few decades. Large amounts of foreign aid to the Palestinians are spent to support terrorists and deepen hostility.

For years the most senior figures in the Palestinian Authority have supported, condoned and glorified terror. “Every drop of blood that has been spilled in Jerusalem,” PresidentMahmoud Abbas said last September on Palestinian television, “is holy blood as long as it was for Allah.” Countless Palestinian officials and state-run television have repeatedly hailed the murder of Jews.

Monday, January 25, 2016

Prime Minister Justin "Prince Bonehead" Trudeau wants to re-establish diplomatic relations with these assholes. Trudeau has a Parliamentary Secretary to the Foreign Affairs Minister who supports their terror proxies, and Trudeau's brother has taken money from, and made propaganda for Iran.

TORONTO — The Iranian government sent lawyers to a Toronto courtroom on Monday to fight attempts by victims of Hamas and Hezbollah attacks to hold the Islamic republic to account for sponsoring the terrorist groups that harmed them.

Faced with the prospect of losing two Ontario properties and bank accounts worth $2.6 million to victims of terrorism, Iran argued it was protected from civil suits by state immunity and that what it owned enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

There is a huge mural in a public space at York University that implicitly encourages violence against Israelis while denying Israel's right to exist. It depicts what is obviously a Palestinian, clutching a pair of large rocks behind his back, while gazing at Israel and wearing a map of Palestine in which the Jewish state has been eradicated. A number of Israelis have been murdered by Palestinian rock-throwers.

Paul Bronfman is the Chairman of the company which own William F. White International, Canada's most prominent supplier of professional film equipment and resources (like Canada's Panavision). William F. White currently provides a huge amount of resources to York's film department, but that support will be withdrawn if the terror-encouraging mural is not removed immediately, according to Bronfman.

York University has a significantly-sized Jewish student population, but it is also a notorious hotbed for Islamist extremism, where anti-semitic occurrences are common, and where support for terror groups like Hamas is widespread among its radical, student union-financed groups.

The report below is from The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center:

Paul Bronfman is a busy man. As the
Chairman and CEO of Comweb Corp and William F. White International, as well as
the Chairman of Pinewood Toronto Studios, Mr. Bronfman is entrenched in the
details of providing professional production services and technical expertise
to Canada's motion picture, theatrical and live event industries. He is also a
voting member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, which
presents the Canadian Screen Awards - the most prestigious award show for
Canada's top films and TV series.

Torontonians have become accustomed to seeing William F. White production
vehicles, servicing local film and television shoots, parked on city streets in
every season and at every hour of the day. Bronfman is, in essence, the go-to
guy for producers looking to shoot in Canada.

He is also a committed Director of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC)
who is truly leading by example and standing up for Jewish and pro-Israel
students, as well as the wider Jewish community, in openly confronting the
ongoing manifestations of anti-Israel activity and veiled antisemitism at York
University.

This week, after learning about a controversial poster promoting violence
against Israel hanging in the campus student center, Bronfman called university
president Mamdouh Shoukri to discuss concerns about the tacit support for hate
and anti-Israel terror.

"I thought, I am in a position to put some pressure on the people at York
who are allowing hate propaganda to be displayed," Bronfman explained,
noting that during the phone conversation, which also included the Dean of Law
and the VP Advancement, "I was given a bunch of legal jargon.
Shoukri said the university had gotten a lot of complaints, but all I received
were regurgitated political statements - nothing of substance; nothing that
showed the university cared in any way about the students harmed by the hate
this mural represents."

But Bronfman, hailed by the Toronto Star as one of the industry's most
outspoken advocates, provides considerable support to the university's
Cinema & Media Arts department, - support that is about to be withdrawn.

"The upshot is that if that poster is not gone by the end of day today
then William F. White is out of York. York is going to lose thousands of
dollars of television production equipment used for emerging student
filmmakers, access to technical people who do education and student training
and student seminars, workshops and open houses at William F. White Center that
help them develop the hard skills needed to fill industry infrastructure
positions like gaffer or grip: they will no longer be invited. York University
will be persona non grata at William F. White international until they take
that poster down," Bronfman emphasized.

"This will be a huge loss for students - it's not just about the
equipment but the access to training that Paul is planning to withdraw - there
are no other private corporation that offer this scale of mentorship and
training to students like William F. White does," explained FSWC President
and CEO Avi Benlolo.

"I know how difficult this step must be for Paul - he is very dedicated to
helping the next generation of filmmakers and is such a cheerleader for the
Canadian film and TV industry but - at the end of the day, I am so proud to see
him taking a stand for our community and for all students who feel threatened
and intimidated by this hateful poster, and neglected by an administration that
has never expressed any sympathy or understanding for their
concerns." Bronfman is hopeful this step will resonate with community
leaders who are on York's Board of Governors to resign and withdraw funding
from York.

"Shoukri is willing to lose significant educational opportunities for his
students to keep this anti-Israel, antisemitic poster, which is tarnishing the
university's good name. Why is he willing to do this? It makes me sick and
should be offensive to all Canadians," he maintains.

Asked whether he thinks his efforts will make a difference, Bronfman responds,
"I think if they really cared about the issues of hate propaganda and
antisemitism they would do the right thing and take the mural down."

Editor's Note: As of the writing of this article the mural has not been taken down

Saturday, January 23, 2016

U of T News asked political science professor Randall Hansen, director of the Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs for his views.

Why wasn't Canada invited to this meeting?Because of the withdrawal of our fighters from the war against ISIS. There is and can be no other reason.

The defence minister says it's no big deal that we weren't invited as there are meetings being held all the time, to which we are invited. Is this true?No, it isn’t true and he knows it or should. We have been excluded from the central defence meeting on dislodging ISIS from northern Iraq. No amount of spin can hide that.

Do you think we were snubbed?Yes, and the Liberal government thoroughly deserved it. The Liberals played shabby electoral politics with a matter of immense international importance.

Are critics correct in saying that we weren't invited because of the Liberals' decision to suspend air operations?Beyond a doubt. Our allies, above all the French, were furious with our decision and we are now paying the price. I just came from Berlin where a senior official openly mocked Canadian soldiers who had to take off their uniforms and put on flannel shirts because it made them look like peacekeepers...

Every now and then with Justin Trudeau the mask slips: when that bottomless reservoir of self-assurance of his, which in his best moments presents itself as graciousness and magnanimity, instead bubbles up as arrogance and hubris. For some reason this seems most often to happen when he’s abroad. Remember that post-election boast to the BBC about having left his critics “in my dust”?

This time, it was in the middle of his speech to the annual conference of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. For the most part the speech was chamber of commerce-stye boosterism, mixed with the usual assortment of buzzwords that festoon most of Trudeau’s speeches: diversity, infrastructure, middle class, etc.

But then there was that line that must have seemed too good to resist. “My predecessor,” he began, “wanted you to know Canada for its resources. I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness.”

If ever there were a phrase for which the advice given to countless writers, to “kill your darlings,” might have been devised, this was it. There is always something classless and off-key, for starters, in taking a shot at your defeated opponent overseas — outside the family, as it were.

The Not Guilty verdict in Gregory Alan Ellott's trial for criminal harassment of two radical feminists on twitter, is a slightly upbeat note concluding a sour fugue.

The verdict by Justice Brent Knazan is less an indication that justice prevails in Canada than that justice has not gone completely batshit crazy. Although in the three years preceding the verdict, you could easily be forgiven for making the opposite assumption.

In a nutshell, Elliott exchanged twitter insults with Stephanie Guthgrie and Heather Reilly, and he used the same hashtags as them. The two women, who seem to have a history of looking for reasons for which they can become offended, complained to police that they felt threatened and harassed by Elliott's tweets. All the parties agree that Elliott never actually threatened any harm to the women and there was no form of sexual harassment in his tweets.

A sane person familiar with the workings of online media would have let it go there. But in one of the most disgraceful acts by Canadian police and prosecutors in this decade, they decided to pursue charges against Elliott. As a result, his career was ruined, and he became massively indebted in legal costs.

Whether or not Gregory Alan Elliott is obnoxious is not an issue. The Internet breeds obnoxiousness, and Elliott's was apparently not vastly greater than his accusers. Not Guilty may keep him out of jail, but the offence against justice was that this case was even considered for trial, let alone having gone through a three-year criminal process.

The Prisoner is one of television's great achievements. Above is the rarely seen documentary Six Into One, which tells the story of that program.

he actor Patrick McGoohan had been kicking around ideas for a new television series when writer George Markstein told him about Inverlair Lodge in Scotland. The Lodge had been used by Special Operations Executive during the Second World War as “a detention or internment camp” for those individuals who refused to take part in covert operations “once they became aware of the full details.”

Some were unable to kill when the occasion was reduced to a one-on-one scenario, as opposed the anonymity of a battlefield exchange. With information being released on a Need to Know basis, their training meant that they were in possession of highly classified and secret information relating to pending missions, and could not be allowed to return to public life, where a careless remark could have compromised their secrecy.

As Markstein later explained the residents were:

...largely people who had been compromised. They had reached the point in their career where they knew too much to be let loose, but they hadn’t actually done anything wrong. They weren’t in any way traitors, they hadn’t betrayed anything, but in their own interest it was better if they were kept safely.

The Ontario Education Communications Authority did presented the series in the 1970's, with insightful commentary from Warner Troyer, who did this interview with the show's star and co-creator Patrick McGoohan at the conclusion:

...After a career in aerospace, where he admirably made things and improved the world by enabling jet travel — well before his pearl-clutching carbon panic phase — Nye was introduced to the world of sketch comedy. Ironically, while his acting is pretty good, it was his science that would become the big joke.

As an actor playing the role of “The Science Guy,” Nye served an important purpose: getting children interested in science. It wasn’t an original idea, of course. Children of previous generations were entranced by science-themed entertainers like Mr. Wizard. At least Nye looked the part, though: he might charitably be considered a character actor for the quintessential pencil-neck geek.

The NDP having had Opposition status was a fluke anyway. Mulcair did better than most of his predecessors. Mulcair is relatively sane, and compared to the fanatics and lunatics that make up the bulk of the federal NDP caucus, he's the only reason they have a shred of credibility.

Thomas Mulcair wants to stay on as leader of the NDP and says he won’t resign. He says it’s up to NDP members to decide his fate, as they will … sort of … at an automatic leadership review in April.

In striving to hang onto his job he’s presenting his party with a ticklish puzzle: Mulcair suggests that all he needs to keep hanging his coat in the leader’s office is a vote of 50%-plus-one at the review. That might seem awfully low: Cheri DiNovo, who isn’t even an MP but has made it her goal in life to get rid of Mulcair — say’s it’s “absurd.” But what’s the party to do? Official NDP policy holds that Quebec should be allowed to break up Canada on a vote of 50%-plus-one. Are DiNovo and her supporters going to argue the NDP rates a higher standard than the country they seek to govern?...

Monday, January 18, 2016

...Now safe and at home, Kiku says, “I’ve always been a non-controversial entertainer. I don’t know how or why this happened. But it’s not as if I’ll stop laughing or stop raising laughs. I am sorry but not scared. This one incident has not soured my relationship with comedy. But it has made me question my own beliefs. I’ve never insulted anyone in my life. No one has the right to hurt anyone’s religious sentiments.”

Kiku pleads innocence about the offended godman’s reach and following and holds the writers (of the special, Jashn-e-Ummeed) and the channel (Zee) responsible. “I had no idea of how important he was to his followers and the work he did. As usual, I was a given a get-up and my lines by the writers. I just went on stage and performed what was given to me. Little did I know that it would snowball into such a controversy.”...

Sunday, January 17, 2016

With the CBC’s TV ratings down 40% to a specialty channel-like 5% share of viewers even before it lost its NHL contract, according to Canadian Media Research, it’s worth asking again what has gone wrong with the Mother Corp and what should be done about it? The answer to the first question is that it no longer represents ordinary Canadians to themselves in a way they like or even recognize. So when its funding comes under scrutiny, it is not surprising that most Canadians collectively yawn while watching any of the myriad other channels available to them on various media platforms.Someone recently observed that the CBC is not about Canadian programming but programming Canadians to its enlightened view of how the world should work. Look at the litany of in-house CBC stars and ask if any are representative of ordinary Canadians and their values? Carol Off lets As It Happens serve as a platform for endless cries for social justice here and around the world. Recent events revealed the sulphurous Jian Ghomeshi as a sexual wolf dressed in progressive clothing (his photo still graces Q’s Podcast, a thoughtless oversight by the CBC bureaucracy). Peter Mansbridge championed Naomi Klein’s latest rants about the evils of capitalism as the book of the year; try and imagine the host of CTV News taking such a position. Michael Enright on Sunday Morning took a break from advocating tax increases to question why no bankers had been jailed after the financial crisis. The answer is easy — here they did nothing but manage their affairs in a quintessentially prudent Canadian manner...

Saturday, January 16, 2016

...Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) summed up the attitude of many Americans in his Saturday statement:

Today the four Americans who have been unjustly held in in Iran are finally returning home and we welcome them with open arms. They and their families have been through unspeakable pain and suffering and their freedom brings relief to not only them, but the entire country.

Friday, January 15, 2016

We are five minutes into our lunch when Roland Fryer asks if he may use my notepad and pen to draw a chart. The youngest African-American to take up a tenured professorship at Harvard University is explaining his new research on racial differences in the use of force by US police. As a teenager, Fryer had guns pulled on him “six or seven” times by cops. “But,” he says, sketching a downward curve from left to right, “there is a disturbing trend of people discussing race in America based only on their own personal experience.” In a voice with a hint of southern drawl, he adds: “I don’t care about my personal experience or anyone else’s — all I want to know is how that experience gets us to data to help us know what is really going on.”

Understanding what is really going on led last year to Fryer, 38, winning the John Bates Clark medal, an annual award for an American economist under 40 and arguably the second most prestigious economics gong after the Nobel Prize. His empirical work has eviscerated stodgy thinking about race, education and inequality. Through his Education Innovation Lab, founded in 2008, Fryer is attempting to reshape how America thinks about public policy, statistic by statistic.

Such is the case with his latest work. At a quiet table in the cavernous Hawksmoor Seven Dials, a branch of the high-end restaurant chain in central London, where the decor is brown and the meat is red, Fryer tells me how he spent two days last year on the beat shadowing cops in Camden, New Jersey. (On his first day on patrol a woman overdosed in front of him and died.) What Fryer wanted to figure out was whether the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner — two African-Americans whose deaths led to widespread protests — were part of an observable pattern of discrimination, as activist groups such as Black Lives Matter have suggested. After his week on patrol, he collected more than 6m pieces of data from forces such as New York City’s on cases of blacks, whites and Latinos being victims of police violence.

The graph he passes between the salt and pepper displays his provisional findings. The horizontal axis is a scale of the severity of the violence, from shoving on the left all the way to shootings on the right. The curve starts high, suggesting strong differences in minor incidents, but descends to zero as the cases become more violent. In other words, once contextual factors were taken into account, blacks were no more likely to be shot by police. All of which raises the question: why the outcry in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, where Brown was shot?

TORONTO - Emboldened by a mayor, John Tory, who can’t say no to anyone, the usual suspects emerged Tuesday to lean on the budget committee to fund their every want.It didn’t take long for those who came to speak and the mostly leftist councillors on the committee to reiterate demands for a variety of revenue tools, that is, more taxes.Gone was the hysteria of the Rob Ford days when they worried they might actually have to account for their handouts.There were repeated calls Tuesday from those — mostly in the poverty industry — to resurrect the $60 personal vehicle tax (PVT) and to put in place a tax on the LCBO, a parking lot levy, a progressive property tax (that penalizes those with more expensive homes), and even a two-cent hike on the GST.The attitude appeared to be whatever they could grab from those they perceived to be richer than them, the better...

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Washington (CNN)The Supreme Court on Wednesday tackled a case concerning more than $1.75 billion sought by victims of terrorism and their families against the Bank of Markazi, the central bank of Iran.

More than 1,000 American victims of Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks and their surviving family members -- who have won judgment against Iran -- are seeking to have the funds, currently being held in New York, turned over.

Key activists in two of Israel’s best-known left wing NGOs were caught on camera admitting that they entrapped Palestinians interested in selling land to Israelis and then reported them to the Palestinian Authority, despite knowing that these Palestinians faced near-certain torture or murder at the hands of the PA’s secret police.

The story was first reported yesterday by Uvda, a prestigious Israeli television news magazine that is the local equivalent of 60 Minutes. The two activists are Nasser Nawaja, a Palestinian and a prominent field researcher for the human rights group B’Tselem, and Ezra Nawi, a Jewish resident of Jerusalem and a key figure in the pro-Palestinian, pro-BDS group Ta’ayush. They were secretly recorded by members of another NGO, called Ad Kan, who then delivered the tape to Uvda’s reporter Omri Assenheim.

“He’s not the first to call me, he’s maybe the fourth,” Nawi bragged on tape, while speaking of a Palestinian real estate agent who contacted him with offers of land for sale to Israelis. “And right away I send their pictures and their phone numbers to the Palestinian security services.”

Speaking off camera, an unnamed Ad Kan activist asks Nawi what the PA does then.

...Liberal ministers who spend their time targeting corporations and unions are the dirty little secret of Queen’s Park. Ontario remains the Wild West of Canadian fundraising, now that Alberta has cleaned up its own election financing embarrassments.

Shortly after winning power last spring, NDP Premier Rachel Notley banned all such donations with the “Act to Renew Democracy in Alberta.” She was following the lead of two former federal prime ministers — Jean Chrétien, who first imposed limits on corporate and union contributions, and then Stephen Harper, who eliminated them entirely.

Ontario, however, is still living — and fundraising — in the past. Wynne makes no apologies for perpetuating the practice, describing corporate donations — unlawful elsewhere — as an important right for these entities in the democratic process.

Trolling for company money may be good for the party’s treasury, but it’s bad for the province’s governance. Corporations don’t donate for altruistic reasons, but to access power and advance their own agendas.

Professors differ on how much their grading should be based on tests, written assignments, labs, class participation and other factors.

But students' looks? Most faculty members would deny that physical appearance is a legitimate criterion in grading. But a study presented Monday at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association finds that -- among similarly qualified female students -- those who are physically attractive earn better grades than others. For male students, there is no significant relationship between attractiveness and grades. And the results hold true whether the faculty member is a man or a woman...

Monday, January 11, 2016

...Though a proud Canadian for many years, George was an immigrant in this land, and brought with him memories and experiences North Americans have been fortunate to escape in recent generations. He had seen up close what it meant to live without the rights and security we take for granted — first, as a young Jew in Nazi-allied Hungary, forced to wear the yellow star, spared from the Holocaust only by it not having been fully executed in Budapest by the time the Germans were driven out. Later, with his homeland “liberated” by the victorious armies of the U.S.S.R., George saw what little improvement the Soviets made as masters. They weren’t set on exterminating George and his family, but had little beyond that to recommend them, he felt. He fled the country after the Red Army crushed the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, but never left those memories behind.

Even in his final days, freedom was much on George’s mind. A member of this editorial board visited with him recently. “Forty years ago,” George said, “or 50 or 60, no reasonable observer would have imagined our world looking like this.” He was referring to the state of the world in a general sense — a resurgent Russia, an increasingly assertive China, a Middle Eastern power vacuum being filled by Iran, Saudi Arabia and blights such as the Islamic State. But he was referring first and foremost to the utterly befuddled and hapless state of the West, which he felt was so afraid of its own past sins, so reluctant to cause offence, that it risked losing the will to defend itself, and its values — the values George spent his lifetime cherishing...

The Canadian Government has set up a hotline to assist people who are "triggered"and feel traumatized by reading material on a Canadian government website. I'm not sure what's worse; whether the government assumes its citizens are so psychologically frail and pathetic that it believes being "triggered" from reading its website is a serious issue, or that Canadians actually are so psychologically frail and pathetic that it's a serious issue.